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ADDRESSES 


DELIVERED  AT  THE 


Twenty-seventh  Annual    Meeting 


OF 


The  Jndian    Rights    Association 


Thursday  Evening,  December  17,  1909 


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ADDRESSES 


DELIVERED  AT  THE 


Twenty-seventh  Annual   Meeting 


OF 


The    Indian    Rights   Association 


Thursday  Evening,  December  17,  1909 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  CARL  E.  GRAMMER,  S.  T.  D., 

PRESIDENT  OF  THE  INDIAN  RIGHTS  ASSOCIATION. 


Ladies  and  Gentlemen:  According  to  the  general  rule  of 
presidental  addresses  on  such  occasions  it  becomes  my  duty 
to  give  you  a  brief  outline  of  the  work  of  our  Association 
for  the  year.  It  will  be  also  well  that  I  should  rehearse  in 
passing  once  more  some  fundamental  articles  in  our  belief, 
and  if  possible  make  plainer  and  therefore  more  effective 
some  cardinal  principles  in  our  philanthropic  efforts.  I 
shall  omit  much  for  the  sake  of  brevity,  but  I  shall  some- 
what enlarge  on  principles  because  we  have  the  great 
pleasure  of  having  with  us  the  Commissioner  of  Indian 
Affairs,  the  Honorable  Robert  G.  Valentine,  who  will  I 
doubt  not  compliment  us  by  telling  us  with  frankness  of  the 
situation  in  his  great  department,  and  of  the  way  in  which 
in  his  judgment  such  associations  as  ours  can  best  help 
him  in  his  work,  and  I  am  anxious  that  he  should  know 
exactly  how  we.  ourselves  conceive  our  work,  that  we  may 
have  the  benefit  of  his  criticism  and  of  a  frank  interchange 
of  views. 

When  we  met  at  this  annual  gathering  a  year  ago,  we 
were  occupied  with  the  confinement  in  an  Arizona  prison 
of  Byalille  and  Polly  with  their  six  companions,  on  an  in- 
definite sentence,  without  any  previous  trial  by  any  court, 
martial  or  civil.  Our  application  for  a  writ  of  habeas 
corpus  was  pending.  Later  on,  as  you  know,  it  was 
refused  by  the  court  of  first  instance,  but  this  decision  was 
reversed  by  the  Appellate  Court  in  a  unanimous  decision 
of  the  judges  who  took  part  in  the  trial  of  the  case.  Notice 
of  an  appeal  was  given  by  the  Government,  and  Mr.  John 
G.  Johnson,  whom  we  asked  to  represent  us,  in  case  the 

3 


appeal  was  carried  to  the  Supreme  Court,  generously 
agreed  to  do  so  gratuitously.  We  awaited  the  result  with  a 
confidence  that  had  always  been  strong,  but  was  made 
even  greater  by  the  great  weight  of  Mr.  Johnson's  opinion 
that  the  decision  of  the  Appellate  Court  was  good  law  and 
ought  to  stand.  The  government,  however,  finally  aban- 
doned the  appeal,  and  this  Association  has  thus  vindicated 
the  important  principle  that  the  Indians  are  not  under  the 
personal  control  of  the  agent  to  such  an  extent  that  he 
can  deprive  them  of  liberty  without  due  process  of  law,  or 
incarcerate  them  indefinitely  until  he  is  satisfied  that  they 
are  sufficiently  tamed  by  his  lawless  force  to  be  regarded  as 
law-abiding  characters,  who  can  be  safely  turned  out  on 
the  community.  By  our  action,  the  Indian  has  been  given 
a  striking  proof  of  the  power  of  the  law,  since  he  has  found 
that  it  carries  a  shield  for  the  oppressed,  as  well  as  a  sword 
for  the  oppressor;  and  the  Indian  Department  has  had  the 
great  principle  clarified  that  in  its  efforts  to  safeguard  and 
further  the  public  welfare  it  must  move  within  the  circle 
drawn  by  the  law;  that  it  cannot  ride  roughshod  on  its 
way — "law  or  no  law" — but  that  there  must  be  law  and 
not  lawlessness  in  the  Indian  Office.  It  is  good  to  know 
that  these  principles  have  been  accepted  by  the  present 
administration,  and  enjoy  the  approval  of  our  present 
Commissioner.  It  is  a  matter  for  grave  concern  that  the 
Territorial  judge  should  have  so  little  legal  insight,  or  such 
an  inability  to  criticise  the  party  to  which  he  owed  his 
appointment,  that  he  could  not  recognize  the  true  principles 
at  issue.  It  is  also  a  subject  of  regret  that  such  a  champion 
of  ethics  and  of  the  courts  as  "The  Outlook"  should  have 
endorsed  this  imprisonment,  and  quoted  the  lower  court 
as  supporting  its  view;  but  should  have  failed  to  record 
the  reversal  of  the  case,  and  have  given  us  only  the  most 
limited  opportunity  to  state  our  view  of  the  situation. 
Can  it  be  that  this  great  weekly,  that  aspires  to  fill  the  high 
office  of  a  prophet  of  national  righteousness,  has  lost  its 
vision,  and  like  the  old  prophet  in  the  Book  of  Kings, 
who  dwelt  in  the  capital  of  Jeroboam  and  enjoyed  the 


king's  protection,  has  become  a  dangerous  counsellor  to 
younger  prophets?  There  is  some  similarity  in  conditions. 
The  favor  of  the  authority  in  capitals  has  ever  been  apt  to 
dim  the  vision  of  the  prophets.  "The  Outlook's"  course 
in  this  case  reminds  us  that  we  must  try  the  prophets,  if 
we  are  to  retain  the  vision. 

Shortly  after  this  success  in  the  case  of  the  Navajos,  we 
met  with  a  technical  reverse  in  the  confirmation  of  the 
appointment  of  Mr.  Dalby  as  Indian  Inspector.  Largely 
through  the  great  influence  of  our  Honorary  President, 
Hon.  Joseph  H.  Choate,  we  were  given  a  hearing  before  the 
Senate  Committee  on  Indian  Affairs,  and  a  number  of  the 
members  of  our  Executive  Committee,  headed  by  Mr. 
Herbert  Welsh,  went  to  Washington  and  stated  the  grounds 
of  our  opposition.  Mr.  Dalby  had,  however,  behind  him 
the  immense  weight  of  a  new  administration,  whose  recom- 
mendations the  party  managers  were  desirous  of  carrying 
out,  if  possible,  and  our  statements  were  not  given  the 
weight  that  would  normally  be  given  to  assertions  that  a 
certain  agent  did  not  so  enjoy  the  confidence  of  the  public 
that  his  reports  would  carry  conviction.  It  seems  to  have 
been  the  understanding  that  a  merely  technical  victory 
should  be  won  over  us,  for  shortly  after  his  confirmation 
Mr.  Dalby  retired,  and  I  shall  be  much  surprised  if  we  hear 
any  regrets  from  Mr.  Valentine,  who  has  so  frankly  spoken, 
at  Mohonk,  of  the  great  difficulty  of  securing  intelligent  and 
trustworthy  inspectors.  Still,  I  regret  that  we  did  not 
gain  our  case  before  the  Senate  Committee,  and  I  wish  to 
protest  here  against  a  policy  of  compromise,  which  is  very 
seductive  to  those  involved  in  the  difficulties  of  adminis- 
tration, but  is  really  so  dangerous  to  the  moral  foundations 
of  society.  When  serious  charges  are  made,  for  example, 
against  an  agent,  of  slack  administration  on  his  part,  under 
the  pressure  of  wealthy  men  who  have  political  friends  high 
in  authority,  it  is  for  the  Indian  Office,  in  the  line  of  the 
least  resistance,  to  suggest  to  the  agent  and  his  friends 
that  if  he  will  slip  out  and  so  put  an  end  to  a  situation  that 
has  caused  trouble,  he  will  be  given  clean  papers  and  his 


administration  will  not  be  officially  blamed.  This  avoids 
any  unpleasant  exposure  of  profitable  exploitation  of  politi- 
cal influence  by  party  leaders  in  any  section,  and  does  not 
excite  any  deep  animosities.  Yet  it  is  a  course  that  only 
makes  the  way  of  the  wrong-doers  easy.  If  the  exploita- 
tion of  the  Indian  is  to  be  stopped,  the  Department  must 
not  merely  alter  as  rapidly  as  possible  the  conditions  that 
make  such  aggressions  difficult  to  prevent;  it  must  also 
have  the  courage  to  stand  up  against  the  lawless  greed  of 
the  white  men,  must  brand  their  ill-gotten  gains  as  illicit, 
and  must  tear  from  their  faces  the  mask  of  legality.  It 
must  also  strengthen  the  conscientious  public  servant  in 
his  fidelity  by  refusing  an  honorable  discharge  from  the 
service  to  the  inefficient  and  slack.  It  must  resist  the 
temptation  of  publicly  rebuking  an  Association  like  this, 
as  a  society  of  impractical  visionaries,  and  then  privately 
getting  rid  of  the  men  to  whom  we  object.  There  is  abun- 
dant precedent  for  this  treatment  of  reformers.  It  has 
always  been  an  attractive  by-path,  close  to  the  highway 
of  righteousness.  The  Earl  of  Shaftesbury,  who  made  that 
great  title,  once  associated  either  with  political  intrigue 
or  sentimental  speculation,  a  synonym  for  practical  philan- 
thropy and  wise  reform  through  legislation,  again  and 
again  asserted  in  his  biography  that  his  associations  were 
frequently  deprived  of  the  full  fruits  of  their  successes  by 
the  unwillingness  of  the  public,  and  especially  of  the  govern- 
ment, to  give  them  due  credit  for  their  achievements. 
Not  that  the  great  Earl  wanted  praise.  A  man  who  had  so 
despised  contumely  could  do  without  praise.  It  was  not 
that;  but  he  wanted  the  acknowledgment  that  the  moral 
principles  on  which  he  had  based  his  reforms  had  proven 
safe  guides,  so  that  those  principles  and  their  advocates 
might  have  their  weight  in  the  future,  when  fighting 
against  the  prudential  expediencies  of  administration.  He 
wanted  the  banners  of  victory,  as  well  as  the  more  sub- 
stantial fruits,  that  he  might  be  able  to  enlist  more  recruits 
for  the  service.  I  believe  that  I  express  the  mind  of  this 
Association  when  I  say  that  we  sympathize  with  Lord 


Shaftesbury  in  this  matter.  If  we  are  wrong,  let  the  Depart- 
ment refute  us  vigorously ;  it  will  be  a  wholesome  discipline 
and  teach  us  accuracy  and  sanity ;  but  if  we  have  proven  to 
be  helpful  to  the  cause,  let  us  have  the  frank  assurance  of 
that  helpfulness.  A  recreant  prophet  may  be  thrown 
overboard  to  still  the  storm,  but  the  true  prophet  should  be 
approved. 

But  I  must  turn  to  the  work  of  our  agents.  Mr.  S.  M. 
Brosius  went  out  west  during  the  summer  on  his  annual 
trip  of  inspection.  On  one  of  the  reservations  he  found  a 
drunken  and  inefficient  farmer  in  charge,  and  his  representa- 
tions resulted  in  the  removal  of  this  bibulous  character 
from  his  post.  He  also  interested  himself  actively  in  the 
Yumas,  who  had  been  given  by  Congress  five  acres  apiece 
of  the  irrigated  land  on  their  reservation.  The  allotment 
had  not  yet  been  made,  and  Mr.  Brosius  helped  to  bring 
about  a  suspension  of  the  allotment  till  Congress  should  be 
given  an  opportunity  to  reconsider  its  action.  Mr.  Brosius' 
appeal  for  ten  acres  is  supported  by  clear  and  strong 
arguments,  and  I  believe  will  prevail.  I  understand  that 
the  present  Commissioner  favors  this  more  liberal  allot- 
ment. Mr.  Brosius  has  also  done  good  work  in  advocating 
the  protection  of  the  Pimas  in  their  use  of  surface  water  for 
agriculture.  He  has  endeavored  also,  though  without 
success,  to  reach  Chitty  Hargo,  or  "Crazy  Snake,"  and 
persuade  him  to  entrust  himself  to  the  courts.  His  most 
important  work,  however,  has  been  in  studying  the  ques- 
tions that  gather  around  the  protection  of  the  Indians  in 
their  allotments,  and  the  restriction  of  their  right  of  sale, 
so  that  they  may  not  be  allowed  to  deprive  themselves  of 
their  land  till  they  have  made  a  full  trial  of  agriculture  as  a 
means  of  livelihood.  Better  than  reform  of  abuses  is 
their  prevention  by  wise  legislation.  Mr.  Brosius  has  spent 
about  fourteen  weeks  in  all  in  the  field,  and  has  brought 
back  much  knowledge  and  numerous  suggestions  that 
deserve  our  careful  consideration. 

Mr.  Sniffen  has  also  gone,  as  our  agent,  into  the  west 
and,  with  the  entire  concurrence  of  the  Commissioner,  has 


8 

been  on  the  Crow  reservation,  in  Montana,  from  which  he 
was  once  ejected.  Every  courtesy  was  shown  him  in 
gathering  information,  and  when  the  Government  resolved 
on  the  very  course  that  we  had  been  so  long  vainly  advo- 
cating, and  sent  out  Mr.  Holcombe,  their  Chief  Supervisor, 
to  investigate  that  reservation,  this  same  mischief -making 
Mr.  Sniffen,  this  dangerous  character  who  was  put  off  the 
reservation  in  Commissioner  Leupp's  day,  was  requested 
by  Mr.  Holcombe  to  go  out  again  and  aid  the  supervisor 
by  his  unofficial  services.  Mr.  Holcombe  is  with  us  this 
evening,  and  as  he  has  not  rendered  his  report,  I  suppose 
that  I  must  not  enter  in  that  matter.  Much  of  the  evidence, 
however,  is  already  in  our  hands,  and  we  are  looking  with 
interest  to  hear  what  Mr.  Holcombe  thinks  about  the 
digging  of  that  great  ditch  across  the  reservation  without 
any  authority  from  Washington,  and  without  any  check 
from  the  agent.  Mr.  Lincoln  used  to  tell  the  story  of  a 
temperance  lecturer  in  Texas  who  rode  up  on  a  hot  day  to 
a  tavern,  where  the  host  was  stirring  a  bowlful  of  cooling 
and  fragrant  mint-julep.  "Won't  you  have  some?" 
said  the  host.  "No,"  said  the  traveller,  "it's  against  my 
principles,"  and  he  took  a  glass  of  water.  "Better  take 
some  of  this,"  urged  the  host.  "No,"  said  the  traveller, 
"I  can't  do  it,  but — but — but — I  wouldn't  mind  if  you 
could  put  some  in  this  glass  unbeknownst  to  me."  Some- 
times agents  don't  mind — if  things  are  done  unbeknownst. 
But  a  watch-dog  that  can't  see  or  won't  bark  should  surely 
be  discharged  from  keeping  guard. 

I  have  left  till  the  last  the  most  important  occurrence 
of  the  year.  Shortly  after  the  inauguration  of  Mr.  Taft, 
Mr.  Leupp  resigned,  and  the  present  Commissioner  took 
his  place.  Towards  the  end  of  his  Commissionership  Mr. 
Leupp  had  lost  all  patience  with  this  Association,  and 
regarded  us  as  chronic  fault-finders,  and  we  had  lost  that 
trust  in  Mr.  Leupp's  balance,  wisdom  and  open-mindedness 
which  we  had  given  him  when  he  entered  his  high  office. 
At  the  time  of  his  retirement  I  took  it  upon  myself,  as 
your  president,  to  say  in  an  interview  that  was  published 


in  the  "North  American,"  that  we  regarded  Mr.  Leupp's 
resignation  as  a  relief.  Among  other  criticisms  upon 
him  I  stated  that  he  had  made  it  more  difficult  for  the 
Indians  to  leave  their  reservations  by  the  issuance  of  a 
complicated  set  of  regulations.  In  a  private  correspondence 
with  me  Mr.  Leupp  has  disowned  these  regulations,  and 
claims  that  they  existed  in  Commissioner  Jones'  day,  and 
were  not  continued  in  force  or  reissued  by  him.  I  find 
that  he  is  correct  in  saying  that  these  regulations  date  back 
to  the  previous  Commissioner.  I  desire,  therefore,  to 
modify  my  statement  so  far.  But  Mr.  Leupp  has  not 
furnished  me  with  proofs  that  justify  any  further  retraction. 
The  Indian  Office  in  Washington  does  not  appear  to  know 
that  these  regulations  are  no  longer  in  force.  In  a  contro- 
versy of  this  kind,  where  the  former  Commissioner  calls 
on  me  to  support  my  statements  by  proof,  the  exigencies 
of  the  case  demand  similar  proof  of  his  averments.  This 
he  has  not  supplied.  All,  therefore,  that  I  wish  to  do  on  this 
occasion  is  to  state,  in  justice  to  Mr.  Leupp,  that  he  dis- 
avows that  the  Indians  were  kept  in  undue  restraint  by  the 
agents,  and  claims  that  he  allowed  them  much  increased 
liberty.  I  accept  Mr.  Leupp's  statement  of  his  inten- 
tions; but  I  cannot  admit  that  he  made  those  intentions 
effective  in  the  service.  Of  this  no  satisfactory  proof  has 
yet  been  afforded  me.  It  will  be  of  interest  to  Mr.  Valen- 
tine to  know  that  his  predecessor  states  that  rule  No. 
586  has  been  repealed.  It  reads  as  follows: 

"The  practice  of  bands  of  Indians  making  or  returning 
visits  to  other  reservations  is  deemed  injurious  to  both  the 
visitors  and  the  visited,  and  must  not  be  encouraged;  but 
where  a  few  Indians,  who  have  by  meritorious  conduct 
and  attention  to  their  work  earned  the  enjoyment  of  certain 
privileges,  desire  to  make  short  visits  at  seasons  when  it 
will  not  interfere  with  any  important  interest,  there  will 
be  no  objection,  provided  always  that  the  consent  of  the 
agent  of  the  tribe  to  be  visited  has  previously  been  obtained. 
In  all  doubtful  cases  the  consent  of  the  Indian  Office  must 
first  be  asked  for  and  obtained." 


10 

I  should  be  glad  to  have  some  documentary  proof  of 
such  repeal ;  that  is  to  say,  a  copy  of  some  order  annulling 
its  restrictions. 

It  is  a  great  source  of  gratification  to  us  that  Mr.  Valen- 
tine has  spoken  out  so  strongly,  at  the  Mohonk  Conference, 
of  the  conditions  in  his  branch  of  the  service,  and  acted  so 
promptly  in  ordering  the  investigation  of  the  Crow  reserva- 
tion. I  must  not  stand  much  longer  between  you  and  him. 
Yet  before  I  present  him  to  you,  I  must  say  a  few  words 
on  our  relation  to  his  great  department. 

It  has  become  an  axiom  in  the  administration  of  our  great 
institutions,  where  large  powers  of  control  over  others  are 
placed  in  the  hands  of  officials,  that  the  interests  of  these 
officials  and  of  their  wards  require  that  there  should  be 
unpaid  and  disinterested  inspectors  to  oversee  and  keep 
watch  against  the  growth  of  tyranny  and  against  the  de- 
generation of  sloth  and  routine.  The  keepers  of  our  jails, 
our  almshouses,  our  hospitals  and  our  reformatories  must 
be  made  to  feel  that  their  wards  have  stronger  voices  than 
their  own  to  plead  their  cause,  if  they  are  wronged.  The 
Indian  service  is  in  charge  of  over  a  quarter  of  a  million 
wards,  and  has  great  and  necessary,  though  often  ill -defined, 
powers.  We  are  not  anxious  to  curtail  these  just  powers 
and  render  the  department  ineffective,  but  we  are  not  so 
ignorant  of  mankind  as  to  believe  that  large  powers  can 
safely  be  bestowed  without  the  exercise  of  great  watchful- 
ness over  the  guardian  and  his  ward,  and  the  infliction  of 
prompt  and  public  punishment  for  the  abuse  of  such  power. 
We  are  not  able  to  persuade  ourselves,  in  the  light  of  our 
own  history  and  the  history  of  the  conditions  in  the  Indian 
service,  that  the  official  visitors  who  are  appointed  by  the 
President  are  sufficient  to  insure  the  necessary  criticism 
and  impartial  scrutiny.  While  their  services  should  be 
recognized,  and  wholesome  benefits  they  have  secured 
for  the  Indians  should  be  gratefully  recorded,  still  they 
themselves  recognize  the  value  of  voluntary  associations, 
unconnected  in  any  way  with  the  government  and  whose 
trumpet  is  not  muffled  by  official  courtesies.  The  field 


II 

is  so  large  and  the  problems  so   difficult  that  the  more 
minds  enlisted  in  the  service,  the  better  for  the  cause. 

In  addition  to  this  problem  of  guarding  the  exercise  of 
great  discretionary  power  in  the  hands  of  agents,  who  are 
far  distant  from  the  supervising  authority,  we  have  the 
additional  task  of  trying  to  uplift  a  backward  race,  sur- 
rounded by  a  population  that  resents  its  presence.  "The 
trouble  with  South  Africa,"  said  an  Englishman  to  Booker 
Washington,  "is  the  presence  of  the  black  man."  He 
regarded  the  black  men  as  intruders  down  there.  In  the 
same  way  many  of  our  people,  particularly  in  the  west, 
regard  the  Indians  as  intruders  in  America  and  are  ready 
to  resort  to  any  methods  to  oust  them.  This  temper  of  the 
whites  is  just  as  much  part  of  our  problem  as  the  laziness  and 
barbarism  of  the  Indians.  Thejoppression  that  results  from  it 
we  regard  it  as  our  duty  to  point  out.  Indeed  the  chief  prob- 
lem of  the  Indian  Office  is  created  not  by  the  size  and  com- 
plexity of  its  machinery  and  the  toughness  of  the  material 
on  which  it  works;  but  by  the  pressure  upon  that  whole 
machinery  of  the  immense  weight  of  the  masses  of  white 
population,  who  want  what  the  Indian  has  and  want  to 
secure  it  on  their  own  terms.  We  are  not  engaged  in  the 
vain  task  of  trying  to  keep  back  the  advancing  tide  of 
civilization.  It  is  not  the  contention  of  this  Association 
that  the  Indian  ought  to  be  stirred  up  to  hold  on  to  all  his 
property,  and  to  gain  in  this  way  an  unearned  increment  of 
value  that  will  support  him  and  his  in  idleness  forever.  We 
are  in  favor  of  giving  him  his  land  in  severalty,  as  rapidly 
as  can  be  done,  and  of  introducing  him  into  the  rights, 
responsibilities  and  perils  of  other  persons  in  this  land. 
But  we  believe  that  in  such  allotments  the  Indian  should 
be  given  a  fair  chance  to  make  good,  by  securing  for  him 
a  sufficient  allotment;  that  he  should  not  be  embittered 
by  fraud  in  the  purchase  of  the  remaining  land;  that  his 
properties  should  not  be  exploited  by  people  with  political 
influence;  that  he  should  not  be  carried  out  into  the  jungle 
and  torn  in  pieces  by  the  wild  beasts,  which,  if  recent 
realistic  fiction  is  not  utterly  false,  and  recent  utterances  by 


12 

one  who  wears  the  judicial  ermine  are  not  utterly  untrue, 
ravages  out  beyond  the  Alleghenies  just  as  we  know  from 
personal  experience  it  ravages  up  and  down  these  streets 
of  Philadelphia.  The  Indian  needs  to  be  protected  against 
this  beast  of  the  jungle,  as  Judge  Lindsay  has  well  named 
it;  and  the  agent  needs  to  be  warned  against  it.  In  cases 
where  we  have  reason  to  believe  that  the  agents  are  in 
close  combination  with  parties  whose  interests,  in  a  narrow 
sense,  are  opposed  to  the  rights  of  the  Indians,  we  believe 
that  we  help  the  department  in  pointing  out  such  relations, 
and  that  we  benefit  the  public  service  by  emphasizing  their 
perils.  The  inspector  of  arms  in  the  army  must  not  be 
concerned  in  the  manufacture  of  arms,  nor  the  boon  com- 
panion of  the  manufacturer  whom  he  is  paid  to  watch; 
and  the  Indian  agent  who  has  no  warmth  of  feeling  for 
the  Indian,  and  is  the  close  business  associate  of  the  people 
who  are  using  Indian  properties,  is  an  agent  who  does  not 
gain  public  confidence. 

There  are  many  problems  in  the  elevation  of  the  Indian, 
I  know — educational,  sanitary,  legal,  and  economic;  and 
we  are  interested  in  all  of  them,  but  not  one  of  them  will 
succeed  unless  we  can  protect  this  aboriginal  people  from 
the  unscrupulous  graft  of  our  money-getters,  as  well  as 
from  the  fiery  potages  and  the  seductive  vices  of  our  com- 
plex civilization.  Righteousness  is  needed  in  ourselves, 
as  well  as  in  the  Indians,  if  they  are  to  be  saved  and  exalted. 

But  I  have  spoken  sufficiently  on  our  work  and  our  aims, 
and  it  gives  me  much  pleasure  to  present  to  you  our  dis- 
tinguished guest,  the  Hon.  Robert  G.  Valentine,  who  has 
risen,  through  his  efficiency  in  the  Department,  to  the  posi- 
tion of  Commissioner  of  Indian  Affairs. 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.   R.   G.  VALENTINE, 

COMMISSIONER  OF  INDIAN  AFFAIRS. 


Mr.  President,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen:  I  wish  I  could  get 
into  a  few  words  all  I  feel  when  I  say  I  am  glad  to  be  here. 
Perhaps  it  would  be  better  for  me  to  put  before  you  what 
I  came  here  to  say  without  reference  to  one  or  two  points 
in  Dr.  Grammer's  remarks  which  you  might  be  interested 
in  having  me  speak  to  you  about,  leaving  those  to  come  up 
afterward  in  any  questions  which  you  might  like  to  ask. 
That  will  perhaps  save  time. 

Your  invitation  to  me  to  speak  at  your  annual  meeting 
would  in  itself  be  a  compliment,  for  this  is  an  occasion 
when  the  collected  data  and  thoughts  of  a  year  are  natur- 
ally being  gathered  into  orderly  array,  and  so  one  in  which 
your  own  minds  are  most  sensitive  to  the  impressions  of 
the  past  and  most  prolific  of  plans  for  the  future.  It  is 
an  occasion  in  which  there  must  necessarily  be  much  that 
is  still  tentative,  much  that  is  balancing  on  the  edge  of 
judgment.  It  is,  therefore,  an  occasion  when  it  is  particu- 
larly kind  of  you  to  invite  a  stranger  within  your  gates; 
for  unless  he  come  in  full  recollection  of  his  presence  as  a 
guest,  he  is  likely  to  introduce  a  jarring  element  thought- 
lessly, though  not  of  course  intentionally,  and  so  interfere 
with  the  clarifying  of  the  situation  in  your  minds. 

But  your  invitation  is  even  more  kind  than  this.  You 
have  coupled  with  it  in  response  to  my  query  as  to  what 
subjects  would  interest  you  most,  the  further  invitation 
for  me  to  state  my  views  as  to  the  good  that  can  come  from 
co-operation  between  the  government  and  an  association 
like  yours.  I  accept  this  invitation  and  shall  keep,  in 
intention  at  any  rate,  within  the  spirit  of  the  courtesy  with 
which  it  was  offered,  at  the  same  time  that  I  pay  tribute 


14 

to  the  sincerity  of  your  courtesy  by  speaking  with  absolute 
candor,  in  the  belief  that  should  my  views  not  meet  yours, 
you  will  tell  me  why  and  in  what  way. 

And  in  this  connection  I  shall  hope  by  being  brief  enough 
not  to  tire  you,  to  leave  time  at  the  end  for  full  questioning 
and  informal  discussion.  I  always  feel  in  answering  ques- 
tions at  the  end  of  an  address  that  I  am  then  sure  of  in- 
teresting at  least  the  questioner.  I  shall,  therefore,  cover 
certain  parts  of  my  subject  rather  broadly  and  suggestively, 
leaving  the  discussion  later  to  fill  in  the  details. 

Before  I  take  up  my  views  of  co-operation,  it  may  be 
useful  for  us  all  for  me  to  sketch  in  briefly  the  main  out- 
lines of  Indian  affairs  as  I  see  them,  that  we  may  all  have 
the  larger  elements  of  the  picture  clearly  before  us,  get  its 
perspective  true  and  become  fully  aware  of  our  point  of 
view, — that  point  of  view — and  in  this  I  yield  to  none — 
common  to  all  who  have  the  best  interests  of  the  Indian, 
and  only  those,  at  heart. 

The  geography  of  the  picture  is  clearly  on  this  map 
behind  me.  The  yellow  areas  indicate  the  regions  where 
many  of  the  Indians  live,  in  these  the  reservation  being 
still  a  dominant  issue  in  the  problem.  But  nearly  half  of 
the  three  hundred  thousand  Indians  in  the  country  to-day 
live  in  regions  not  clearly  shown  here, — one  hundred 
thousand,  for  example,  in  the  eastern  part  of  Oklahoma, 
many  thousands  scattered  through  California,  and  many 
more  in  Michigan,  and  smaller  groups  scattered  through 
others  of  the  twenty-six  States  in  which  the  Indians  live. 
The  total  area  of  this  Indian  country,  were  it  grouped  into 
one  solid  mass,  would  be  about  twice  the  State  of  New 
York  in  size;  and  it  is  really  very  much  larger  than  that 
because  of  the  difficulty  of  transportation  within  many  of 
these  regions,  where,  oftentimes,  a  large  section  of  country 
is  accessible  only  by  trails.  We  all  know  how  the  good 
wagon  road,  the  railroad  and  the  automobile  road  have 
played  tricks  with  the  geography  of  our  youth. 

To  this  great  physical  size  of  Indian  affairs  is  added  a 
bewildering  complexity  of  content.  It  is  perhaps  best 


illustrated  by  the  fact  that  the  tribes  within  these  areas 
speak  something  like  two  hundred  and  fifty  fairly  distinct 
dialects,  and  these  dialects  are  but  one  evidence  that  the 
variety  of  thought,  action,  and  human  qualities  generally, 
makes  our  work  heterogeneous  in  character.  You  will 
pardon  me  for  telling  you  many  things  which  you  already 
know,  but  I  find  it  often  useful  to  review  these  facts  in  my 
own  mind.  The  Blackfeet  are  as  different  from  the  Hopi, 
the  Sioux  from  the  Navajo,  as  are  the  nations  of  Europe 
from  each  other,  and  each  must  consequently  be  dealt 
with  in  his  own  peculiar  way.  In  many  of  these  regions 
the  tribal  relation  is  still  almost  as  powerful  as  of  old;  in 
others  it  has  almost  disappeared.  As  a  whole  the  problem, 
either  from  the  point  of  view  of  what  does  exist  or  will 
soon  exist,  has  become  one  in  which  the  individual  Indian, 
whether  closely  bound  in  tribal  customs  or  entirely  freed 
from  them,  has  become  our  main  work.  The  govern- 
ment to-day,  with  its  corps  of  two  hundred  men  in 
Washington  and  five  thousand  in  the  field,  must  do  the 
best  it  can  with  three  hundred  thousand  quite  separate 
human  beings  as  its  task. 

To  these  individuals  belong  many  millions  of  money; 
tribal  funds  still  on  deposit  in  the  Treasury  of  the  United 
States,  individual  funds  deposited  both  there  and  on  de- 
posit in  the  national  banks  throughout  the  country.  Also 
through  the  country  are  400  schools  broadly  divided  into 
five  classes:  Non-reservation  schools,  reservation  board- 
ing-schools, day-schools,  religious  contract  schools  and 
public  schools  where  Indians  attend,  with  an  enrollment 
altogether  of  about  46,000  pupils.  Several  thousand  chil- 
dren of  school  age  are  not  in  school  at  all.  About  36  per 
cent,  of  the  area  of  this  Indian  country  has  been  allotted 
to  Indians  in  individual  ownership  in  areas  ranging  from 
five  acres  in  irrigated  sections,  passing  up  through  eighty- 
and  one-hundred-and-sixty-acre  tracts  in  agricultural 
country,  or  even  larger  amounts  in  the  dry-farming  coun- 
try, to  areas  a  mile  square  in  certain  grazing  countries. 
Many  of  the  allotted  Indians  live  on  their  allotments;  many 


i6 

do  not;  some  live  on  them  without  farming  them  at  all, 
and  some  farm  them  to  differing  extents.  Widely  through- 
out the  country  unused  parts  of  allotments  are  leased  to 
the  incoming  white  man,  and  generally  all  these  Indian 
holdings  are  being  crowded  in  upon  by  the  economic,  social 
and  political  life  of  our  white  people,  developing  with 
astounding  rapidity;  Oklahoma  City,  for  example,  in 
Oklahoma,  where  a  few  years  ago  only  Indian  country  was, 
is  to-day  a  rapidly  growing  city  of  fifty  thousand  inhabitants, 
with  many  miles  of  paving  and  street  railways,  where  seven 
or  eight  years  ago  hardly  a  square  yard  of  paving  existed. 
Even  the  remotest  sections  of  the  Indian  country  are 
being  penetrated  by  the  prospector  and  the  would-be 
lessee  and  settler,  until  there  is  little  of  it  all  that  is  not 
to-day  more  or  less  under  the  influence  of  our  civilization, 
with  all  its  varied  forces,  good  and  bad;  trade,  from  the 
highly  developed  department  store  to  the  outlying  trader's 
post;  the  saloon,  from  the  gilded  bar  to  the  boot-legger; 
the  church,  from  the  beautiful  building  to  the  little  out- 
lying mission;  the  home  of  the  wealthy  citizen,  to  the  cabin 
of  the  frontiersman. 

I  hope  I  have  not  wearied  you  with  this  canvas,  which 
often  seems  to  me  a  subject  for  some  modern  Michael 
Angelo  to  use  on  some  great  decorative  ceiling,  indicating 
•emblematically  the  millions  of  acres,  the  millions  of  dollars 
and  the  millions  of  human  traits  involved. 

Politically,  this  living  human  problem  of  three  hundred 
thousand  souls  has  been  directly  entrusted  by  the  President 
of  the  United  States,  on  behalf  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  to  the  Commissioner  of  Indian  Affairs  and  his  force 
of  over  five  thousand  assistants,  almost  all  of  whom  are 
to-day  under  the  Civil  Service  of  the  United  States,  I  am 
glad  to  say.  This  is  a  task  no  one  man  can  hope  to  handle 
except  in  its  broadest  outline.  He  must  depend  for  its 
in  any  wise  successful  execution,  not  only  on  the  sub- 
ordinate help  of  his  own  employees  as  government  officials, 
but  on  their  equal  and  co-operative  help  as  fellow-workers. 
And  these  are  the  least  part  of  the  forces  which  work  either 


for  him  or  against  him.  In  a  sense,  the  greatest  body  of 
his  fellow-workers  in  the  task  are  the  great  body  of  citizens 
living  on  or  around  Indian  reservations  who  are  largely 
outside  his  jurisdiction,  to  a  number  far  exceeding  the 
number  of  the  Indians;  and  beyond  this  great  mass  of 
citizens  are  the  rest  of  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
themselves  knowing  more  or  less  about  Indians,  some- 
times unorganized  and  sometimes  organized  into  associa- 
tions like  yours.  Standing  in  the  midst  of  such  mighty 
human  currents  as  these,  the  only  way  in  which  the  man 
who  is  supposed  to  handle  Indian  affairs  can  move  in  the 
right  course  is  by  recognizing  the  fundamental  laws  of 
human  action.  I  will,  therefore,  try  to  sketch  for  you  just 
as  I  have  the  objective  side  of  the  problem,  its  subjective 
aspects.  You  will  readily  perceive  that  in  such  a  situation 
the  merely  human  plans  or  policies  of  any  individual, 
clothed  with  no  matter  how  high  seeming  authority,  have 
little  place ;  how,  if  he  would  be  strong  for  the  purposes  of 
guidance,  he  must  know  not  plans  or  policies,  but  principles. 
You  may  think  my  distinction  a  fanciful  one,  but  to  me  it 
is  most  healthful.  I  can  perhaps  illustrate  it  and  empha- 
size it  in  your  minds  by  an  illustration  from  trade.  A  so- 
called  captain  of  industry  building  a  great  railway  system 
or  great  manufacturing  or  commercial  enterprise  becomes 
what  he  is  by  seeing,  as  other  men  do  not  see,  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  production  and  commerce.  Into  his 
net  fall  the  smaller  men  who  merely  had  business  plans 
and  business  policies.  So  great  are  the  principles  of  life 
as  opposed  to  mere  plans  and  policies  that  even  when  these 
plans  and  policies  are  concentrated  in  all  the  power  of  the 
government  of  a  great  nation,  they  do  not  suffice  to  buck 
successfully  the  simple  laws  of  trade.  The  government  of 
the  United  States  cannot  in  any  lasting  way  name  the 
price  of  boots  and  shoes.  I  have  therefore  said  many 
times  in  my  Indian  administration,  "I  have  no  plans,  no 
policies";  that  in  all  my  words  and  thoughts  I  am  only 
trying  to  express,  whether  to  the  people  in  the  service  or 
to  the  citizens  who  live  near  the  Indians,  the  principles 


i8 

in  the  light  of  which  we  must  live,  if  we  would  do  good  to 
the  Indians.  I  try  to  view  and  express  these  principles 
from  every  possible  point  of  view.  A  short  time  ago,  speak- 
ing at  Mohonk,  I  spoke  of  them  from  the  point  of  view  of 
health  and  schools  and  industries.  Here  to-night  I  propose 
to  look  at  them  from  another  point  of  view,  and  lay  them, 
under  other  names,  as  clearly  as  I  may  before  you. 

The  first  principle  of  which  I  would  speak  is  this:  That 
no  human  power  can  long  stay  the  land  from  being  put  to 
beneficial  use.  I  am  often  asked  why  we  cannot  keep  the 
Indian  in  the  old  reservation  life,  why  we  ever  need  attempt 
to  make  him  share  our  civilization — why,  in  short,  the 
Indian  may  not  remain  an  Indian,  with  all  his  customs  in- 
tact. The  principle  I  have  stated  answers — cruelly,  if 
you  please,  sympathetically  perhaps,  if  you  listen  right — 
Every  acre  of  the  land  of  these  United  States  must  be  put 
to  its  own  greatest  productiveness.  Oppose  the  Indian 
to  this  and  you  push  him  under  the  wheels  of  a  Juggernaut, 
which  is  greater  than  you  or  I  or  all  the  power  of  the 
people's  government  can  stay;  because  the  people  them- 
selves, whether  consciously  or  unconsciously,  are  bound 
to  make  this  land  blossom.  Nothing  but  an  act  of  God, 
changing  the  nature  of  man,  would  avail.  It  is  so  that  the 
property  of  the  rich  man's  son,  does  he  fail  in  his  steward- 
ship, passes  into  the  hands  of  the  man  who  only  starts 
poor.  And  so  it  is  with  the  Indian's  money  as  it  is  with 
his  land,  and  so  it  will  ever  be  as  with  all  human  beings. 
The  only  hope  for  the  Indian  is  in  teaching  him  to  be  the 
one  to  make  the  beneficial  use.  All  of  the  energies  of  those 
who  have  the  good  of  the  Indian  at  heart  should  be  bent 
toward  teaching  him  to  use  his  land,  and  such  Indians  as 
can  never  be  made  into  farmers  must  be  taught  otherwise 
the  beneficial  use  of  their  moneys,  or  their  hands  or  their 
brains — in  the  light  of  this  same  great  principle  of  beneficial 
use  which  will  crush  everyone  and  anyone  who  does  not 
either  consciously  or  unconsciously  obey  it. 

In  this  connection,  I  would  point  out  a  way  in  which  one 
of  the  greatest  forces  which  is  bound  to  bear  on  the  Indian, 


19 

whether  we  like  it  or  not,  can  be  turned  to  his  advantage. 
I  speak  of  the  grafter,  the  man  or  the  community  who  is 
trying  to  get  the  Indian's  land  away  from  him.  Grafter  is, 
perhaps,  best  defined  by  stating  that  he  is  the  man  who 
tries  to  get  something  for  nothing.  There  are  any  number 
of  people  in  the  different  States,  and  they  are  not  all  con- 
^  fined  to  Indian  country  at  that,  who  are  working  on  this 
basis.  It  is  a  form  of  gambling,  if  you  please.  Now  that 
isn't  the  element  of  the  situation  to  which  I  would  call 
your  attention  to-night,  but  that  whether  it  is  in  a  good  man 
or  a  bad  man,  it  is  this  great  passion  of  acquisitiveness 
which  is  at  the  root  of  the  grafter  as  it  is  at  the  root  of 
the  greatest  philanthropist  who  ever  lived.  I  want  us  to 
look  for  a  moment  at  this  side  of  the  grafter  which  I  think 
we  have  never  fully  grasped.  Picture  to  yourself  one  of 
you  going  to  live  near  the  Indian  country.  You  are  young ; 
you  are  strong;  you  have  a  good  mind;  you  are  poor, 
perhaps,  but  your  sound  vitality  and  healthy  human  in- 
stincts lead  you  to  make  the  most  and  best  of  all  that 
comes  your  way.  You  go  down  into  a  rich  agricultural 
land  and  buy  forty  acres.  Bordering  you  lives  an  Indian 
on  one  hundred  and  sixty  acres  of  that  rich  land  with  a 
little  garden  on  only  a  few  acres  of  it.  The  seasons  roll  by 
and  you  make  the  most  of  your  forty  acres.  You  farm 
every  square  yard  of  it  intensively ;  you  get  fine  crops  and 
a  growing  bank  account.  But  the  years  that  have  seen 
this  advance  for  you  find  the  Indian  still  just  where  he  was 
when  you  came.  You  think  what  you  could  do  if  you  had 
some  of  his  land,  and  in  a  perfectly  honorable  way  you 
spread  your  own  domain  by  buying  some  of  his  at  a  full 
and  fair  price.  Now  this  is  the  spirit  of  progress  in  its 
most  honorable  form,  moving  under  all  the  law-imposed 
and  self-imposed  rules  of  a  high  political  and  ethical  state. 
But  imagine  the  infinite  varieties  of  this  same  perfectly 
normal  healthy  spirit  of  acquisition  under  all  the  imperfect 
forms  of  civilization.  Not  only  you  go  in,  but  the  adven- 
turer goes  in,  and  the  robber  goes  in.  At  the  bottom  they 
have,  like  you,  the  perfectly  healthy  instinct  of  making 


2O 

use  of  what  comes  their  way,  but  they  take  as  you  bought. 
An  average  community  around  an  Indian  reservation,  as 
right  here  in  Philadelphia,  is  full  of  the  play  of  such  forces 
from  one  extreme  to  the  other,  and  the  bulk  of  people  in 
one  community,  as  in  the  other,  is  fundamentally  sound 
and  healthy.  It  is  merely  that  the  looser  rein  of  political 
and  social  life  gives  freer  scope  here  and  there  for  the  ele- 
mental qualities  to  play.  But  in  the  history  of  the  world 
there  never  has  been  a  community,  whether  it  were  the 
Pilgrim  Fathers  of  Plymouth  or  the  penal  colonies  of  Aus- 
tralia, which  did  not  evolve  out  of  itself  law  and  abiding 
order.  It  is  this  great  fact  to  which  I  would  appeal  in 
our  Indian  affairs.  On  the  one  hand,  move  our  forces 
forward  as  never  before  to  teach  that  Indian  I  have  pic- 
tured for  you  how  to  increase  his  acreage,  hold  for  him  all 
that  part  of  his  one  hundred  and  sixty  acres  which  he  is 
using  and  which,  in  all  reasonable  probability,  in  his  life- 
time he  can  hope  to  use.  It  may  be  twenty  acres,  it  may 
be  forty,  it  may  be  eighty,  and  so  on,  but  unless  it  happen 
to  be  in  some  particular  case  the  whole  one  hundred  and 
sixty,  sell  that  part  which  he  will  not  in  due  time  come  to 
use  as  land — sell  that  part  to  this  perfectly  healthy  in- 
stinct, stripping  it,  however,  of  its  guise  of  robbery  or  sin — 
to  the  force  that  will  put  it  to  beneficial  use.  Stated  in 
abstract  terms,  the  idea  is  this:  The  land  of  almost  every 
Indian  falls  into  two  parts, — the  allotted  land  I  am  speak- 
ing of, — that  which  he  will  use  as  land  to  raise  crops,  and 
that  part  which  is  simply  property  to  him.  Change  that 
at  the  earliest  practicable  date  for  full  and  fair  price  into 
some  other  form  of  property.  Changed  into  money,  it 
can  be  just  as  wisely  administered  by  him  or  for  him,  and 
the  land  which  before  was  tied  up  from  beneficial  use, 
which  blocked  the  development  of  the  country,  which 
kept  out  the  taxpayer,  the  good  neighbor  and  consequently 
the  schools,  will  serve  its  true  purpose.  Then,  having 
removed  this  great  temptation  of  idle  land,  I  guarantee 
that  you  will  find  proved  for  you  my  statement  that  the 
bulk  of  a  community  in  the  Indian  country  is  as  sound  and 


21 

healthy  at  bottom  as  any  other.  I  know,  from  careful 
trips  in  the  Indian  country,  from  talking  just  in  this  last 
month  in  Oklahoma  with  over  four  hundred  different  men 
in  addition  to  the  main  part  of  my  work,  which  was  visiting 
the  Indians  in  their  own  homes — I  know  that  those  men  will 
turn  in  and  help  us  on  the  big  constructive  work  before  us. 
They  will  help  us  in  getting  at  this  health  problem,  at  this 
tuberculosis  problem;  they  will  help  us  in  our  campaign 
against  liquor;  they  will  help  the  Indians  not  to  get  a 
cent  of  credit  in  the  stores.  I  talked  with  some  of  those 
men  in  Oklahoma,  and  said  to  them,  "If  you  really  have 
the  interests  of  this  community  as  well  as  the  Indians  at 
heart,  when  an  Indian  comes  in  and  hasn't  the  money  to 
pay  for  what  he  wants,  if  you  will  say  'you  cannot  get 
credit' — if  you  will  refuse  credit  to  that  child  (which  he 
really  is)  just  as  you  or  I  would  refuse  credit  to  our  children, 
you  will  help  them."  I  cannot  speak  too  sincerely  on  this 
point.  Even  the  wolves  among  these  people  will  be  turned 
into  helpers  of  the  Indian  if  we  go  at  them  right,  not  in  any 
sense  of  being  friendly  to  them  as  being  opposed  to  the 
welfare  of  the  Indian;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  not  in  any 
sense  as  was  the  case  long  ago  where  an  Indian  agent 
often  won  his  spurs  in  the  eyes  of  Washington  by  carrying 
a  chip  on  his  shoulder  for  every  white  man.  It  seems  to 
me  that  the  worst  way  to  get  a  neighborly  spirit  into 
existence  is  to  do  nothing  but  talk  against  these  white  men. 
Cut  them  off  of  all  their  graft,  but  recognize  that  they  can 
help  us  and  that  they  are  the  ones  who  can  do  most,  whether 
we  wish  it  or  not,  to  help  the  Indian.  No  matter  what  the 
government  may  do,  no  matter  what  you  or  I  may  do,  the 
welfare  of  the  Indians  rests  in  the  hands  of  those  white 
people  among  them. 

So  much  for  the  principle  of  beneficial  use.  Another  I 
will  express  as  follows:  The  enormous  risk  attendant  on 
getting  something  for  nothing.  In  the  light  of  this  prin- 
ciple, I  denounce  the  bulk  of  all  our  leasing  of  Indian  lands. 
I  will  ask  your  charity  in  suspending  judgment  on  this 
statement  until  you  have  thought  it  over  in  all  its  aspects. 


22 


It  is  a  somewhat  more  evasive  principle  than  the  one  we 
have  just  left,  and  so  I  ask  this  suspension  rather  than  to 
take  your  time  to  go  into  it  deeply  enough  to  prove  my 
point  at  this  time.  It  would  lead  us  back  to  the  question 
of  the  Indian's  original  right  to  land  as  we  know  land,  and 
it  would  vanish  here  and  there  in  the  light  of  the  fact  that 
to  a  man  who  is  working  hard  at  one  thing  and  whose 
character  is  stable,  other  things  which  may  come  for 
nothing  are  but  added  and  helpful  tools  to  his  wise  useful- 
ness in  the  world.  But  bared  of  these  fringes  and  pared 
down  to  its  naked  essence,  the  principle  stands  that  some- 
thing for  nothing  is  a  grave  danger.  In  short,  the  Indian 
who  is  farming  a  little  and  at  the  same  time  receiving 
large  rentals  for  a  part  of  his  allotment,  has  every  tempta- 
tion, at  least  not  to  increase  his  farming,  and  possibly  as 
his  rental  grows,  to  decrease  it — too  great  a  temptation  to 
put  in  the  way  of  a  character  not  stable,  not  fortified  in 
the  habit  of  work.  I  will  not  here  attempt  to  go  into  the 
thousand  modified  applications  of  this  principle  further 
than  to  say  that  I  believe  the  able-bodied  Indian,  whom  it 
is  wise  to  try  to  make  into  a  farmer,  should  not  be  allowed 
to  lease  at  all,  but  that  such  surplus  land  should  be  sold. 
The  question  will  naturally  spring  into  your  minds  as  to 
why  the  proceeds  which  come  from  the  sale  of  land  and  are 
placed  to  the  Indians'  credit  in  the  banks  are  any  more 
something  for  something  than  the  half-yearly  rentals 
flowing  in  from  their  leased  lands.  The  answer  is  this: 
This  land  on  which  his  lease  lies,  and  from  which  semi- 
annually  a  certain  amount  of  money  comes  to  him,  is 
right  there  before  his  eyes,  and  the  money  comes  in 
without  any  regard  to  anything  he  does.  If  we  sell  this 
land  and  put  the  money  in  the  bank  and  then  do  as  I  am 
doing  to-day  in  the  face  of  a  very  vigorous  attack  all  along 
the  line — refuse  to  let  him  have  that  money  when  he  is 
able-bodied  and  can  get  work — refuse  to  let  him  have  it 
for  food  and  clothing,  he  will  find  that  this  money  comes 
to  him  in  response  only  to  an  actual  need,  coming  as  of  the 
time  of  the  need,  or  because  he  needs  it  for  horses  or  plows 


23 

or  building  a  home — for  some  actual  investment.  That 
different  use  of  this  money  makes  it,  in  one  case,  something 
for  something;  in  the  case  of  the  leasing,  something  for 
nothing.  For  the  old  or  sick,  the  question  of  leasing  or 
sale  should  be  decided  according  to  the  merits  of  each 
particular  case.  For  the  children  likewise. 

The  applications  in  all  their  great  variety  to  individual 
Indians  of  these  two  principles  throw  great  light  on  the 
vital  subject  of  the  issuance  of  patents  in  fee.  They  bring 
us  by  irrefutable  logic  to  the  conclusion  that  the  patents 
in  fee  should  be  issued  to  the  indisputably  competent 
Indian,  but  not  otherwise ;  and  in  making  this  statement  I  am 
simply  leading  you  to  our  third  great  principle  by  stating 
this  time  the  concrete  fact  before  I  state  the  principle  itself. 
It  is  this.  Healthy  growth  can  only  exist  by  using  our 
powers  to  their  fullest  capacity.  The  unused  arm  becomes 
flabby;  the  coddled  child  grows  to  the  insipid  man.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  thoroughly  tired  body  wakes  to  stronger 
activities,  the  actively  employed  mind  to  clearer  thoughts, 
the  daring  seeker  after  right  (even  he  who  in  his  seeking 
makes  missteps  and  gets  hard  falls)  into  fortified  character. 
The  Indian  is  in  no  wise  exempt  from  all  this.  As  I  have 
said  elsewhere,  burdens  must  be  put  upon  him  to  the  very 
limit  he  can  bear,  but  not  beyond  that  limit.  Complete 
tire  must  not  be  allowed  to  reach  the  exhaustion  which 
does  not  pass;  the  lesson  must  not  be  so  severe  that 
naught  remains  with  which  experience  may  do  better  an- 
other time.  The  patent  in  fee  is,  therefore,  at  once  one  of 
our  most  useful  and  one  of  our  most  dangerous  adminis- 
trative means  for  creating  Indian  manhood.  This  use  of 
land  which  I  have  brought  before  you  to-night  would  largely 
diminish  the  apparent  necessity,  in  many  cases  the  actual 
necessity,  of  the  issuance  of  the  patent  in  fee,  and  the  out- 
coming  report  will  show  the  way  in  which  we  have  cut  down 
the  issuance  of  these  patents. 

In  this  part  of  my  subject  I  think  I  have  gone  far  enough 
for  to-night.  Other  principles  will  occur  to  you  and  their 
application  to  the  vast  complexity  of  Indian  affairs  fur- 


24 

nishes  a  study  unexcelled  in  human  interest.  But  these 
others  all  exist  either  as  impinging  on  the  three  great  ones 
I  have  named,  or  as  applications  of  them  of  such  vast  im- 
portance that  they  are  really  based  on  modifications  of 
these  in  the  form  of  minor  principles.  I  have  said  enough 
to  indicate  the  subjective  complexities  of  the  vast  objective 
problem  I  outlined  at  the  start. 

I  turn  now  more  specifically  to  the  invitation  within  your 
invitation  to  me  to  come  here, — the  invitation  to  give  you 
my  views  of  the  good  that  can  come  from  co-operation 
between  us.  It  may  be  a  relief  to  you  after  the  attempt 
we  have  made  to  grasp  this  mighty  problem  in  its  entirety 
and  the  mighty  principles  that  pervade  it,  and  the  conse- 
quently laborious  language  in  which  such  matters  have  to 
be  expressed,  if  I  now  throw  my  subject  into  the  simpler 
forms  of  expression  which  this  branch  of  it  permits.  As 
what  we  are  both  after  is  to  do  the  RIGHT  thing,  I  would  rather, 
instead  of  limiting  myself  to  a  statement  about  your  As- 
sociation alone,  or  even  to  a  statement  about  what  any 
association  of  people  interested  in  the  Indians  is  as  a  body 
actually  doing  or  not  doing  to  help  in  this  work  in  which 
we  are  all  engaged,  state  my  propositions  in  the  subjunctive 
form  of  what  would  help,  and  what  would  hinder.  I  can  do 
this  without  in  any  way  blurring  the  subject  by  making 
it  less  vitally  specific.  Neither  am  I  afraid  in  the  slightest 
degree,  should  I  tell  you  here  frankly  what  I  think  your 
faults  are,  of  your  taking  them  in  any  spirit  except  that 
of  being  helpfully  critical.  If  any  of  you  think  it  worth 
while  for  me  to  state  my  view  of  any  specific  act  of  yours, 
I  will  do  so.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  what  is  frequently  a 
most  wise  course  between  individuals  is  not  only  unwise 
but  unfair  and  untrue  as  between  bodies  of  men;  and  so  it 
seems  to  me  much  more  worth  our  while  here  to-night  to 
take  a  ground  that  is  bound  to  be  free  from  any  danger 
of  obscuring  what  we  are  all  after,  namely,  the  greatest 
possible  light  on  the  road  ahead  of  us ;  and  in  the  interest 
solely  of  Indians,  rather  than  wasting  our  time  as  the  seven 
wise  men  did  who  delivered  themselves  on  the  elephant, 
one  maintaining,  as  you  will  remember,  that  an  elephant 


25 

was  like  a  rope  because  he  had  hold  of  its  tail,  and  another 
that  it  was  like  a  tree  because  he  had  hold  of  a  leg,  and  so 
on.  Let  us  get  off  a  little,  and  arm  in  arm  walk  around 
this  elephant.  An  association  like  yours,  then,  would  help 
the  government  or  would  hinder  it  if  it  did  the  things  I 
will  now  mention,  and  you  will  realize  that  I  must  neces- 
sarily make  all  these  statements  tentatively,  and  as  sub- 
jects rather  for  debate  than  as  attempting  to  be  dogmatic 
truths,  because  I  can  be  of  most  help  to  you  if  I  state  them 
to  you  clearly  from  my  point  of  view,  which  is,  officially, 
the  government's  point  of  view.  I  must  necessarily  know 
that  far  better  than  I  can  know  yours.  For  purposes  of 
simplicity,  I  will  use  the  term  "you"  for  all  associations 
like  yours  and  "me"  for  all  Indian  commissioners  like  me. 

You  would  help  me  if  you  would  study  this  subject  as  a 
whole  and  on  the  broadest  possible  philosophic  basis.  It 
is  like  a  very  complicated  piece  of  machinery  or  like  the 
human  organism;  one  part  cannot  safely  be  touched  with- 
out a  pretty  thorough  understanding  of  all  other  parts; 
one  function  cannot  be  modified  without  a  foregoing  knowl- 
edge of  how  that  modification  will  affect  other  functions. 
I  think  it  is  not  necessary  for  me  to  interject  here  that  in 
this  point,  as  in  all  others  I  shall  mention,  I  am  not  pro- 
nouncing as  to  whether  you  are  or  are  not  doing  this. 

You  would  help  me  by  being  certain  that  your  general 
view  of  the  work  was  based  on  the  most  thoroughgoing 
and  empirical  study  of  it.  To  achieve  this  you  would, 
ideally  speaking,  every  one  of  you,  go  into  the  Indian  coun- 
try, dividing  the  field  into  as  many  parts  as  there  were 
members  of  you,  and,  returning  from  the  field,  compare 
your  notes  and  test  your  observations  by  every  possible 
means  known  to  human  intercourse.  Failing  your  ability 
to  do  this,  you  would  delegate  your  eyes  and  ears  in  the 
gathering  of  this  material  to  the  very  finest  quality  of 
agents  you  could  find  so  that  you  could  be  as  certain  of  the 
accuracy  of  your  material  as  if  you  had  been  on  the  ground 
yourself.  The  arrangement  of  this  material,  the  marshall- 
ing of  it  and  the  deductions  from  it  you  could,  of  course, 
make  yourself,  here  in  your  libraries  in  Philadelphia,  as 


26 

well  as  you  could  sitting  on  a  horse  in  the  midst  of  the 
Navajo  desert,  and  really  better;  I  seldom  allow  myself 
to  draw  any  conclusions  from  my  observations  while  I 
am  on  the  reservation  concerned.  Should  you  ask  these 
agents  not  only  to  collect  facts  for  you,  but  to  think  for 
you,  they  should  be  not  only  first-class  and  impartial  ob- 
servers, but  men  of  fine  reasoning  powers.  I  must  smile 
at  what  I  am  saying  here,  as  at  so  much  I  have  said  to- 
night, because  I  am  stating  what,  of  course,  to  a  large 
extent  you  all  of  you  know  already.  But  I  always  feel 
that  the  particular  usefulness  of  a  speaker  is  as  often  to 
state  as  clearly  as  he  can  what  we  all  know,  as  it  is  to  try 
to  state  new  things.  In  this  belief,  I  will  go  bravely  on, 
and  add  that  such  men  should  be  not  only  absolutely 
honest,  but  above  letting  any  merely  personal  and  the 
more  ordinary  human  considerations  weigh  with  them. 
There  are  a  number  of  important  aspects  in  connection 
with  the  work  of  such  agents  in  the  field  which  I  must 
speak  of  before  I  come  to  the  question  of  your  use  of  the 
material  or  thought  they  furnish  you.  The  main  one  is 
that  their  work  in  the  field  should  be  conducted  in  such  a 
way  that  while  they  should  have  every  facility  given  them 
on  the  part  of  the  government  to  get  information  and  study  all 
sides  of  every  question,  they  should  not  interfere  in  the 
slightest  degree  with  the  actual  running  of  the  govern- 
ment's administration.  This  is  a  matter  which  it  behooves 
even  my  own  inspectors  to  pay  the  greatest  heed  to. 
A  slip  on  their  part  of  this  kind  has  always  serious  conse- 
quences. How  much  graver  then  such  consequences  must 
be  to  the  necessary  discipline  of  the  service  when  committed 
by  anyone  else!  I  may  be  able  to  show  you  a  little  more 
clearly  just  what  I  mean  if  I  say  that  even  when  I  myself 
have  found  conditions  at  an  agency  so  far  from  satisfactory 
to  me  that  I  knew  I  should  shortly  dismiss,  perhaps  in  dis- 
grace, the  superintendent  on  the  ground,  I  have  while  I 
was  present  at  the  agency  and  conducting  my  examination, 
supported  the  power  and  the  authority  of  such  a  superin- 
tendent in  every  possible  way,  and  the  best  part  of  it  is 
that  the  Indians  understood  my  actions.  I  recall  one  case 


27 

where  I  said  to  them:  "I  want  you  to  stop  complaining 
about  this  agent,  or  saying  to  me  that  you  want  him  re- 
moved. I  say  to  you  this:  I  am  going  to  make  your  affairs 
here  go  right.  If  they  are  not  going  right  now,  I  shall 
find  it  out,  and  if  this  man  isn't  doing  right,  I  shall  send 
you  some  one  who  will.  But  this  man,  as  long  as  he  remains 
here,  you  must  not  forget,  is  the  superintendent  in  charge." 
Time  and  again  I  have  found  Indians  able  to  appreciate 
this  attitude,  and  I  have  been  touched  equally  by  their 
trust  in  me  and  by  the  way  in  which  my  statement  led  to 
the  cutting  out  of  the  vast  mass  of  irresponsible  talk  which 
can  be  raked  up  on  any  Indian  reservation  in  the  country. 
Lest  you  should  think  because  of  the  office  of  Commis- 
sioner I  might  be  able  to  do  this,  I  will  say  that  one  of  my 
most  effective  acts  of  this  kind  was  five  years  ago  when  I 
was  on  a  reservation  as  an  inspecting  official. 

You  may  recall  that  when  I  was  somewhat  nearer  the 
beginning  of  my  term  of  office  than  I  am  to-day,  I  made  the 
statement  in  a  public  address  that  as  long  as  I  was  Com- 
missioner of  Indian  Affairs,  I  should  be  enemy  to  no  man 
personally,  but  that  I  should  deal  with  and  talk  with  and 
seek  information  from  friend  and  enemy  alike.  My 
resolution  in  this  particular  has  been  put  to  the  test  fre- 
quently, and  I  only  wish  I  had  time  to  amuse  you  with  the 
harrowings  of  soul,  and  the  really  extremely  funny  situa- 
tions which  this  resolution  has  thrown  me  into.  So  far  I 
have  held  to  it,  I  believe,  unbroken;  and  all  I  can  say  is 
that  if  my  strength  doesn't  hold  out  in  this  direction,  I  shall 
quit  the  job,  for  it  is  a  fundamental  conception  of  mine 
of  what  a  public  servant  should  be.  But  I  had  to  leave  my 
office  the  other  day  and  take  a  good  long  run  in  the  open 
air  before  I  dared  trust  myself.  It  was  because  of  a  par- 
ticular whited  sepulcher  of  the  kind  that  makes  some  of 
us  look  hopefully  toward  the  Judgment  Day,  since  ade- 
quate exposure  seems  improbable  in  this  world. 

In  connection  with  the  subject  of  not  interfering  in  any 
way  with  the  administration  until  the  time  comes  for  the 
proper  authority  to  interfere  in  just  the  right  way  and 
finally,  I  would  call  your  attention  to  another  phase  of  the 


28 

situation.  Unless  it  be  a  New  England  village,  I  know  of 
no  spot  on  earth  more  fruitful  of  gossip  than  an  Indian 
reservation,  and  this  is  only  the  shore  of  the  ocean  of  diffi- 
culty. The  deep  water  into  which  one  may  plunge  stretches 
beyond  the  horizon.  You  know,  I  think,  that  I  speak  with 
some  knowledge  of  actual  conditions  for  I  have  a  rather 
wide  knowledge  of  things  first  hand  in  most  of  the  twenty- 
six  States  where  we  have  Indians,  when  I  say  that  I  could 
go  on  any  one  of  those  reservations,  and,  if  I  wished,  pick 
up  enough  apparent  testimony  to  bring  exceedingly  serious 
charges  against  every  employee  and  most  of  the  Indians  on 
it.  I  could,  in  many  cases,  get  an  affidavit  from  an  Indian 
on  at  least  two  sides  of  a  question;  and  the  affidavit  has 
in  many  cases  become  such  a  pleasantly  exciting,  interest- 
ing occupation  that  I  frequently  say  to  a  man  when  he 
offers  to  give  me  an  affidavit  to  such  and  such  a  fact,  "  Oh, 
please  just  write  me  a  letter,"  really  feeling  that  he  is 
more  likely  to  tell  the  truth  when  he  isn't  going  to  swear 
to  his  statement  than  when  he  is!  The  main  point  I  would 
make  here  is  that  rumors  and  scandals  flock  to  the  man 
who  is  looking  for  them;  and  that  it  is  not  by  such  means, 
whether  in  the  service  or  out,  that  the  right  inspector  gets 
at  the  real  gist  of  a  situation.  And  it  goes  without  saying 
that  where  such  a  condition  is  rife,  every  accused  being 
should  be  dealt  with  in  the  largest  measure  of  charity. 
Incidentally,  I  do  not  limit  that  statement  to  Indian  work. 
I  have  seen  enough  of  public  life  to  bring  me  to  this  re- 
solve: That  a  public  man  is  peculiarly  defenseless,  and 
that  whenever  the  character  or  intention  of  a  public  man 
is  challenged,  I  have  got  to  be  shown  by  indisputable 
evidence  that  he  is  wrong  before  I  will  believe  him  wrong. 
An  inspection  or  an  investigation,  then,  made  by  one  in  or 
out  of  the  service,  should  be  conducted  in  such  a  way  that 
the  fact  that  an  investigation  is  going  on  should  be  either 
as  little  known  as  possible,  or  so  skilfully  handled  that  the 
really  pertinent  facts  are  not  swept  over  by  the  mass  of 
irresponsible  clutter.  One  way  to  avoid  such  a  state  is 
to  remember  that  one  bullet  in  the  heart  will  kill  a  man  as 
well  as  forty,  and  that  questions  should  be  taken  up  in  the 


29 

order  of  their  importance.  If  it  is  a  big  case,  the  first 
point  clearly  brought  out  will  suffice.  If  it  is  simply  a 
generally  bad  administrative  condition  not  in  any  sense 
criminal,  that  can  be  fairly  easily  ascertained  and  such 
change  made  as  will  do  injustice  to  no  one.  One  of  the 
greatest  evils  lies  in  the  mixing  up  of  these  two  propositions. 
There  is  nothing  unwiser,  when  the  question  is  surely  one 
of  mere  administrative  incompetence,  for  example,  than 
to  load  it  with  a  question  of  guilt  which  cannot  be  proved ; 
for  then,  in  order  not  to  do  great  injustice  to  the  person 
concerned,  the  delivering  of  the  reservation  from  him  may 
be  delayed.  Or,  if  it  is  not  a  case  where  he  should  leave, 
getting  things  running  right  again  would  be  greatly  delayed. 
Underneath  it  all  lies  the  fact,  too  frequently  forgotten  in  a 
large  number  of  aspects  of  the  Indian  business,  that  the  good 
of  the  Indian  is  the  real  thing  to  be  considered,  and  that  the 
employee  under  consideration  is  only  an  incident.  Here 
I  lay  myself  open  to  many  grave  charges.  I  am  a  law- 
breaker perhaps,  but  I  can  only  plead  that  I  am  doing  it 
absolutely  in  what  I  believe  to  be  the  interests  of  the 
Indians.  The  other  day  I  quickly  relieved  a  superinten- 
dent from  his  task,  and  he  may,  I  am  frank  to  confess, 
thereby  not  go  where  he  belongs, — into  jail.  I  did  it 
simply  because  to  have  proved  the  criminal  case  which  I 
believe  to  exist  against  him,  would  have  meant  my  re- 
taining him  for  an  indefinite  period  in  charge  of  those 
Indians,  to  their  very  great  detriment.  I  felt  that  my  duty 
to  them  exceeded  my  duty  to  the  community  at  large  in 
letting  a  possible  criminal  loose  among  them.  If  I  have 
been  an  accessory  after  the  fact,  I  will  take  my  medicine 
like  a  man. 

All  I  have  said  applies  both  to  my  own  inspectors  and  to 
anyone  else  in  any  way  looking  into  affairs  on  an  Indian 
reservation;  but  it  of  course  applies  with  peculiar  force  to 
one  outside  the  service,  because  there  the  danger  of  dis- 
rupting the  administration  through  an  Indian's  thinking 
that  there  is  a  dual  responsibility  is  doubly  to  be  feared. 
As  an  illustration  of  that  point,  consider  the  impracticabil- 
ity of  having  two  allotting  agents  at  work  at  the  same  time 


30 

on  a  reservation.  Many  of  the  Indians  always  have  griev- 
ances during  an  allotment,  and  if  there  were  another  head, 
the  recourse  to  him  would  be  constant,  the  work  thereby 
delayed  and  substantial  justice  not  increased. 

I  am  afraid  I  have  been  rather  prolix  on  this  subject, 
but  it  is  one  of  prime  importance,  and  I  want  at  least  to 
get  its  many  varied  aspects  before  you  for  your  further 
consideration. 

Having  satisfied  yourselves  as  to  the  actual  conditions 
existing  at  any  given  point,  and  having  fully  considered 
them  and  come  to  your  conclusions,  you  could  help  me 
by  letting  me  have  the  first  chance  to  avail  myself  of  your 
findings.  In  other  words,  the  real  point  of  attack  in  all 
your  study  of  Indian  affairs  should  be,  not  the  local  con- 
ditions at  any  given  point,  but  rather  my  administration 
which  allows  those  conditions  to  exist.  I  feel  that  you 
could  be  of  the  most  help,  in  short,  by  never  losing  sight 
of  the  fact  that  wherever  you  may  be  or  whatever  you  are 
investigating,  you  are  really  investigating,  considering  me 
and  only  me.  On  that  basis,  having  brought  your  views 
to  me,  if  I  do  not  act  in  the  way  you  think  I  should,  your 
next  point  of  attack  would  be  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior. 
In  the  same  way  you  would  duly  progress  to  the  President 
of  the  United  States,  and  thence  to  the  people  at  large. 

Only  one  other  point  occurs  to  me  of  sufficient  impor- 
tance in  this  connection  to  bring  before  you  to-night,  and 
that  is  the  importance,  in  all  statements,  of  the  most  careful 
substantiation,  on  the  one  hand,  of  any  statement  made, 
and,  furthermore,  of  having  in  readiness  before  making  a 
statement  all  the  evidence  in  the  case.  This  is  a  situation 
I  am  frequently  confronted  with,  and  probably  have  more 
daily  training  in  than  most  people.  I  make  a  statement, 
for  example,  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior.  I  make  it 
in  the  rush  of  the  daily  business,  believing  that  it  is  ab- 
solutely true;  go  back  to  my  office,  forget  all  about  it. 
Suddenly  the  telephone  bell  rings;  the  Secretary  sends  for 
me.  I  go  there;  find  perhaps  a  Senator  or  a  Representa- 
tive, possibly  accompanied  by  some  important  constitu- 
ents. The  Secretary  says,  "Mr.  Valentine,  I  understood 


31 

you  to  say  that  such  and  such  was  the  case?"  "Yes,  Mr. 
Secretary."  Think  of  the  humiliating  and  contemptible 
position  I  should  be  in  had  I  not  my  substantiating  facts 
ready.  I  have  had  a  number  of  such  incidents  happen  to 
me,  and  thanks  to  the  training  I  long  ago  got  in  making 
statements,  I  have  been  able  to  make  good,  and  have  the 
satisfaction  of  hearing  the  Secretary  say, — after  having 
made  my  substantiating  statements  or  having  produced  my 
evidence, — "You  see,  gentlemen,  that  apparently  settles 
it."  And  if  a  statement  which  has  been  made  on  the  very 
best  of  authority  and  belief  comes  out  later  to  be  untrue, 
there  is  no  more  certain  road  to  the  permanent  harmony 
between  co-operating  parties  than  the  most  instant  and 
candid  retraction.  I  shall  never  get  over  the  feeling  of 
shame  I  have  on  behalf  of  certain  people  in  Boston,  who 
said  to  me  some  years  ago  that  the  United  States  troops 
would  never  be  withdrawn  from  Cuba,  making  the  state- 
ment together  with  a  number  of  related  ones  most  damag- 
ing to  the  good  faith  of  the  Cuban  occupation.  These 
gentlemen  made  this  statement  not  only  to  me,  but  to 
others  and  publicly  in  the  papers.  Nowhere,  to  me  or  to 
other  men  to  whom  they  made  it  or  to  the  public  at  large, 
have  I  ever  seen  those  statements  retracted.  I  don't 
like  to  recall  the  incident. 

Many  of  you  will  doubtless  wonder  what  abysses  of 
difficulty  I  must  have  been  plunged  in  to  have  made  me 
bring  up  all  these  things  to-night — things  so  incomprehen- 
sible to  most  of  us  that  they  should  exist  in  any  great  de- 
gree, that  it  may  seem  to  you  that  I  have  given  them  undue 
importance.  I  do  not  feel  that  I  have,  however.  Hardly 
a  month  passes  but  what  one  or  more  cases  which  would 
illustrate  every  point  I  have  made  comes  up  in  the  Indian 
Office.  The  files  of  the  office  contain  too  many  papers 
which  would  seriously  blacken  the  character  and  interfere 
with  the  career  of  many  an  honest  man.  I  came  across 
some  points  the  other  day  which  made  me  almost  question 
the  act  of  a  certain  public  man  who  had  always  been  to  my 
mind  beyond  shadow  of  suspicion.  I  simply  had  to  fall 
back  on  the  belief  which  I  had  always  had  in  the  man,  and 


32 

as  the  papers  did  not  prove  their  case,  I  think  I  can  say  I 
have  honestly  eliminated  their  miserable  implications  from 
my  mind.  But  for  one  to  be  sure  that  one's  mind  has  not 
been  tainted  by  such  things  is  a  difficult  intellectual  and 
moral  task.  It  seems  to  me  of  prime  importance  that 
an  association  like  yours  should  be  warned  of  the  morasses, 
the  fens  and  the  tainted  air  into  which  you,  like  myself, 
must  go  and  through  which  you  must  pass  unharmed  if 
you  would  help  me;  for  only  so  can  either  you  or  I  sift 
the  false  from  the  true. 

Leaving  this  phase  of  the  subject,  I  turn  now  to  the 
happier  one  of  our  honest  intellectual  differences.  That  is 
a  field  which,  in  Indian  affairs,  cannot  be  too  widely  de- 
veloped. I  welcome  the  most  thoroughgoing  difference 
of  opinion  and  the  frankest  and  kindliest,  even  uncom- 
promising— if  we  think  the  matter  of  that  importance — dis- 
agreement. You  could  help  me  most  by  taking  up  with  me 
as  often  as  possible  any  and  every  subject  on  which  you 
thought  I  was  going  wrong  and  doing  your  best  to  convince 
me  of  that  fact.  In  matters  of  that  kind,  a  sense  of  pro- 
portion on  the  one  hand,  and  a  recognition,  on  the  other, 
that  we  are  all  of  us  very  far  from  perfect,  would  keep  us 
from  ever  getting  embittered,  even  were  one  or  the  other 
as  a  result  to  be  put  out  of  official  existence. 

Your  name — the  Indian  Rights  Association — indicates 
to  me,  although  I  do  not  know  your  charter,  a  number  of 
ways  in  which  your  particular  organization  could  be  of 
great  help  to  the  Government.  A  very  great  service  to  the 
Indians  would  be  a  compilation  of  Indian  laws  annotated 
with  the  decisions  of  the  courts  since  the  year  1902.  It  is 
probably  impracticable  at  this  time  to  codify  or  greatly 
condense  the  existing  statutory  law  by  reason  of  the  great 
number  and  variety  of  Indian  treaties,  but  such  a  compila- 
tion would  form  the  basis  of  a  future  codification  and  a  most 
valuable  legislative  handbook,  which  would  go  far  toward 
insuring  the  Indians  against  the  tremendous  losses,  financial 
and  otherwise,  which  result  from  the  passage  of  conflicting 
legislation. 

Indians  having  claims,  real  or  imaginary,  against  the 


33 

United  States  are  now  paying  thousands  of  dollars  for 
attorneys'  fees  where  part  of  the  services  rendered  consists 
in  investigations  of  facts  and  records  in  the  field  and  the 
Office  of  Indian  Affairs  at  Washington.  These  investiga- 
tions usually  form  the  basis  for  a  request  to  Congress  to 
appropriate  the  amount  of  the  claim  or,  where  the  facts  are 
in  dispute,  to  pass  the  necessary  act  enabling  the  Court 
of  Claims  to  determine  the  liability  of  the  United  States. 
It  would  be  peculiarly  appropriate  if  such  investigations 
were  made  by  attorneys  and  special  agents  of  your  Associa- 
tion. Your  recommendations  to  the  Indian  Office  should 
be  of  immense  value  in  reporting  to  Congress  on  legislation 
of  the  character  described,  and  the  Indians  would  be  greatly 
benefited  financially  and  otherwise. 

But  the  rights  of  the  Indians  are,  in  their  lives  as  in  our 
own,  if  dwelt  upon  out  of  proportion  to  other  things,  often 
as  much  a  hindrance  as  a  help.  Too  many  members  of 
many  a  tribe  have  had  their  finer  activities  paralyzed  by 
following  some  claim  against  the  treasury,  just  as  Haw- 
thorne's Pyncheons  were  cursed  by  that  estate  in  Maine. 
There  is  hardly  one  of  us,  I  suppose,  but  has  in  insisting  on 
a  right  lost  a  privilege.  Indian  nature  and  white  nature 
are  strangely  alike.  While  the  feet  of  the  Indian  adminis- 
trator must  be  on  the  firm  ground  of  right  and  law,  what 
is  chiefly  occupying  his  mind  and  inspiring  his  handiwork 
is  the  human  progress  of  the  Indian.  The  bulk  of  my  days 
should,  I  believe,  be  devoted  to  the  Indians'  schooling, 
to  securing  their  industrial  foothold,  and  to  safeguardng 
their  health — physical,  moral  and  religious. 

It  would  be  very  gratifying  to  me  if  your  Association 
would  thoroughly  canvass  all  we  are  trying  to  do  in  our  cam- 
paign against  tuberculosis,  trachoma  and  other  scourges, 
and  give  me  needed  help  in  this  matter,  both  in  thoughts 
and  works.  The.  relation  both  of  reservation  life  and 
of  school  life  to  this  campaign  of  cure  and  prevention 
needs  the  most  careful  study. 

The  moral  health  of  the  Indians — the  development  of 
character  in  both  child  and  adult — is  a  field  too  little 


34 

explored.  I  should  be  glad  at  any  time  to  take  up  with 
you  many  ways  in  which  you  could  assist  us  in  our  cam- 
paign against  the  use  of  liquor  by  Indians. 

Paganism  itself  should  vanish  from  Indian  life,  but  not 
all  that  is  not  only  harmless  but  beautiful  and  helpful  in 
paganism.  We  need  the  most  vigorous  yet  tactful  pushing 
and  the  wise  assistance  of  all  missionary  work. 

The  conservation  of  the  natural  resources  in  the  Indian 
country  is  a  matter  of  prime  importance.  It  must  be  done 
in  a  way  to  bring  these  into  the  best  use  for  all  citizens,  at 
the  same  time  conserving  the  Indians'  opportunities  to 
draw  from  them  what  is  to  their  real  good  in  their  progress 
toward  citizenship.  This  point  offers  a  field  hardly  touched 
on  yet  from  a  broadly  philosophic  standpoint.  What  I 
would  emphasize  in  your  minds  is  that,  in  addition  to  the 
four  great  subjects  which  are  made  the  texts  of  the  con- 
servation movement — lands,  minerals,  water  and  forests — 
I  am  engaged  in  a  fifth  task  of  conservation  involving  all 
these — the  conservation  of  the  Indian. 

And  so  there  seems  no  end  to  the  things  of  this  sort  I 
might  suggest  where  well-organized  study  and  action  on 
your  part  would  be  of  the  greatest  assistance  to  our  over- 
taxed machinery,  and  of  the  steadiest  support  to  us  in  a 
task  the  responsibility  for  which  I  can  neither  shirk  nor 
share.  If  I  may  put  before  you  from  time  to  time  these 
matters  in  more  detail  and  others  like  them,  and  if  you  on 
your  side  will  put  before  me  any  and  every  matter  which 
occurs  to  you  which  you  think  I  should  take  up  and  push 
progressively,  I  shall  be  deeply  grateful. 


ADDRESS  OF  HERBERT  WELSH, 

CORRESPONDING  SECRETARY  OF  THE  INDIAN  RIGHTS  ASSOCIATION. 


I  think,  in  the  case  of  an  association  which  has  had  so 
long  a  life  as  we  have  had,  that  retrospect  has  a  certain 
interest  and  value,  as  well  as  prospect.  I  know  I  find,  in 
my  own  case,  that  the  tendency  seems  to  grow  toward  look- 


35 

ing  backward  and  trying  to  judge  from  the  past  as  well  as 
considering  the  immediate  present,  and  endeavoring  to 
look  forward  into  the  future. 

In  standing  here  to-night  I  am  thinking  of  certain  phases 
of  the  past  which  seem  to  me  interesting  and  profitable.  I 
remember  the  first  days  of  our  Association,  its  life  and 
activities ;  and  in  doing  that  I  have  been  trying  to  look  into 
the  secrets  of  two  great  characters,  I  think  we  may  justly 
say,  who  very  largely  affected  the  life  and  the  course  of  the 
Indian  Rights  Association.  The  first  of  these  was  the  late 
General  S.  C.  Armstrong,  of  Hampton,  Va.,  and  the  second 
was  our  dear  friend,  Bishop  Hare.  I  would  like  to  speak  of 
some  ideas  of  these  two  men  which  were  known  to  me — to 
all  of  us — and  which  very  deeply  and  positively  affected 
the  line  of  our  work.  It  is  interesting  and  valuable  to  get 
these  different  points  of  view.  We  have  had  two  most 
interesting  and  (to  my  mind)  instructive  addresses  to- 
night, based  upon  totally  different  points  of  view;  and  I 
have  no  doubt  that  this  audience,  during  the  course  of  these 
addresses,  was  mainly  impressed  with  the  idea  which  came 
to  me  so  strongly,  of  the  value  of  different  points  of  view. 
Even  where  they  cannot  always  be  perfectly  harmonious, 
they  are  extremely  valuable ;  they  teach  the  great  lesson  of 
balance  and  the  value  which  is  to  be  obtained  from  it. 
If  we  look  upon  the  great  conflicts  of  the  past,  we  learn,  by 
pondering  them  deeply,  to  value  the  contending  ideas  in 
them  even  though  they  may  not  entirely  represent  our 
individual  point  of  view.  What  could  be  more  impressive 
and  interesting,  for  example,  than  that  sense  of  balance 
which  has  come  to  us  here  to-night  from  the  presentation 
given  to  us  by  our  president,  showing  our  particular  point 
of  view  of  the  Indian  question  in  certain  of  its  phases; 
and  then  the  scholarly  and  philosophic,  carefully  balanced 
and  carefully  wrought  treatment  of  this  great  question 
which  has  been  presented  by  our  friend,  Mr.  Valentine. 
And  may  I  say  in  touching  upon  this  point,  before  I  address 
myself  to  the  two  that  I  have  mentioned, — may  I  say  some- 
thing in  regard  to  our  relations  with  the  present  Indian 
Commissioner?  I  know  a  great  deal  about  these  relations, 


36 

and  I  have  been  able  to  look  at  them  from  a  fairly  large  ex- 
perience of  Indian  affairs,  and  I  can  say,  without  any  con- 
viction of  flattery  in  my  inmost  mind,  that  they  have  been 
to  me,  and  I  think  to  those  with  whom  I  am  associated, 
unqualifiedly  delightful.  Why?  Because,  throughout  there 
has  been  shown  to  us  a  courtesy  which  was  without  flaw, 
and  fairness  of  view  and  real  sincerity  of  spirit  which  is 
all  that  a  citizen  of  the  United  States  has  to  ask  upon  the 
part  of  a  public  official.  That  is  leaving  out  of  question 
any  matter  of  policy  that  the  Indian  Commissioner  may 
embark  upon.  So  far  as  I  know  his  policy,  I  should  say  I 
approve  it  unqualifiedly.  There  has  not  been  sufficient 
time  to  develop  it  fully,  but  certainly  we  have  reason  to 
congratulate  this  country,  and  ourselves,  that  a  man 
stands  in  that  position  with  the  intellectual  acumen, 
training,  moral  elevation,  the  courtesy  of  spirit  which  have 
been  manifested  upon  the  part  of  the  present  Indian 
Commissioner. 

Now,  I  wish  to  say  a  little  about  General  S.  C.  Armstrong, 
and  the  influence  he  had  upon  the  formation  of  our  policy 
or  course;  it  was  very  strong,  indeed.  We  were  just 
starting  in  the  beginning  of  our  work,  full  of  youthful  en- 
thusiasm, and  coming  for  the  first  time  in  fresh,  undis- 
ciplined contact  with  the  great  main  facts  of  the  Indian 
question.  We  were  taking  these  facts,  as  I  believe,  fairly 
and  judiciously,  and  certainly  with  entire  sincerity,  and  we 
were  doing  what  had  been  done  to  some  extent  in  the  past: 
we  were  presenting  these  facts  to  the  intelligence  and  con- 
science of  the  people  of  the  United  States.  A  response  was 
coming  in  quickly,  a  strong  sentiment  was  being  aroused. 
Now,  it  was  at  this  juncture  we  came  into  close  personal 
touch  with  that  very  great  and  absolutely  unselfish  man, 
Gen.  S.  C.  Armstrong — a  large  man,  a  man  of  great  ex- 
perience with  the  "tinted  races,"  as  he  used  to  love  to  call 
them ;  experience  with  their  weakness,  experience  with  their 
qualities  which  needed  to  be  developed,  first  in  the  Hawaiian 
Islands,  then  in  his  great  work  for  the  blacks  of  his  country, 
— a  marvellous  work  for  them, — and  last,  but  not  least, 
in  his  contact  with  the  Indians.  Now,  what  was  his  con- 


37 

ception  of  the  relationship  which  this  society  should  have 
with  the  Government?  I  can  see  him  now  standing  be- 
fore me  in  all  his  vigor  of  life,  physical  and  mental,  and  his 
enthusiasm;  I  can  see  the  very  man,  and  his  conception 
was:  constant  visits  to  the  Indian  country,  going  out  and 
seeing  things  with  our  own  eyes,  talking  with  all  sorts  and 
conditions  of  men,  and  we  did  that — we  did  a  great  deal  of 
it.  And  then,  the  next  point  that  he  had  in  his  mind  was 
this — and  we  have  followed  that  out.  This  was  the  cardi- 
nal point  in  our  work:  that  we  should  have  in  Washing- 
ton a  man  who  would  represent  our  society  and  who  would 
carry  our  ideas  and  facts  to  public  men.  He  wanted  us 
to  ask  nothing  more,  and  we  desired  nothing  more,  than  that 
the  truth  should  have  its  own;  to  go  to  Congress  and  show 
them — with  their  shoulders  heavily  laden  with  all  sorts  of 
personal  claims  that  their  constituents  were  bringing  to 
bear  upon  them — to  show  them  the  facts  in  this  Indian 
question.  And  in  numberless  cases,  as  our  reports  for 
past  years  show,  we  were  able  to  prevent  the  passage  of 
selfish  and  unjust  schemes  for  the  spoliation  of  the  Indians, 
and  measurably  we  succeeded  in  getting  good  legislation 
for  them. 

But  there  was  another  man  who  also  had  a  very  great 
influence  upon  the  life  of  our  Association,  totally  different 
from  General  Armstrong;  different  in  his  mental  consti- 
tution and  in  the  character  of  the  work  he  was  called  upon 
to  perform.  That  was  William  Hobart  Hare,  the  perfect 
gentleman,  the  man  of  the  finest  social  fiber,  of  the  most 
delicate  and  pure  spirit,  who  was  drawn  into  that  work  by 
the  gross  sight  which  he  witnessed  some  thirty  years  ago, 
of  a  lot  of  poor  Indians  being  made  sport  of  by  whites  in  a 
Minnesota  town.  That,  as  he  told  me,  was  what  took  him 
into  his  great  evangelistic  work.  We  feel  called  upon  to 
pay  tribute  to  the  character,  to  the  devotion  and  to  the 
self-sacrifice  which  that  man,  during  his  long  and  noble 
career,  poured  out  for  these  people.  He  took  that  which 
he  had  received — the  highest — and  he  gave  it  to  the  lowest, 
and  what  was  the  effect  ?  All  over  those  Sioux  reservations 
— I  can  testify  from  having  seen  it  again  and  again — he 


38 

and  his  missionary  laborers,  and  those  refined,  Christian 
women  who  were  associated  with  him  in  the  work,  brought 
out  of  those  humble  Indian  people,  those  warriors  and 
savages  from  the  plains,  and  their  children,  the  exquisite 
traits  of  Christian  character  which  they  saw  demonstrated 
in  these  self-sacrificing  men  and  women  who  went  to  them. 
Our  friend,  the  Commissioner,  has  told  us  to-night — cer- 
tainly, we  applaud  it — that  his  interest  in  these  people  is 
in  the  people  themselves,  and  we  ourselves  regard  that  as 
the  broad,  true  view.  He  has  sought  to  avoid — I  do  not 
know  that  he  has  avoided  it  or  will — the  effect  of  the 
mere  machinery  with  which  he  is  so  closely  associated,  in 
his  desire  to  get  at  the  heart  and  the  life  of  the  people. 
That  was  what  Bishop  Hare  did  through  a  long  series  of 
years ;  and  one  who  has  travelled  with  him,  who  has  camped 
out  with  him  in  storm  and  in  sunshine,  who  has  seen  him 
in  all  the  details  of  his  life,  who  has  witnessed  the  perfect 
finish  of  these  details  and  the  pure  spirit  with  which  his 
work  was  done,  such  an  one  can,  and  ought,  to  bear  testi- 
mony to  the  greatness  of  that  work.  Is  it  not,  my  friends, 
a  beautiful  thing  to  see  these  different  men — these  different 
workers — giving  all  the  finest  that  they  have  received  to  a 
people  who  are  just  emerging  from  the  stone  age?  I  know 
nothing  finer  than  that;  I  know  nothing  better  than  that, 
and  that  our  Association  has  been  able  to  help  even  to  the 
smallest  degree  these  workers  of  whom  the  world  is  not 
worthy,  that  is  a  delightful  thing  to  recall  and  to  know  that 
it  has  taken  place. 

Now,  one  word,  in  closing,  as  to  the  future.  I  anticipate 
the  greatest  good  coming  from  the  friendly  relations  which 
at  present  exist  between  the  Government's  representative 
of  the  Indian  work  and  ourselves.  My  conception  of  that 
relationship  is  very  much  that  which  has  been  depicted  here 
to-night.  I  do  not  believe  it  possible  for  the  leaders  of 
these  two  forces  to  take  absolutely  the  same  view  of  what 
should  be  done  under  all  circumstances.  There  must,  and 
there  should,  be  a  reasonable  amount  of  difference,  but 
when  those  differences  exist  and  are  handled  by  men  on 


39 

both  sides  who  want  to  be  fair  and  want  to  be  courteous, 
and  who  will  be  fair  and  will  be  courteous,  then  the  largest 
amount  of  good  that  you  can  expect  in  human  affairs  from 
differing  men,  with  their  mortal  frailties  behind  them,  is 
likely  to  take  place.  What  we  propose  to  do  is  this — to 
follow  along  these  lines:  If  we  see  wrong,  if  we  see  moral 
impurity  existing  upon  a  reservation  and  can  point  that 
out  without  any  desire  to  aim  an  unnecessary  harsh  or 
cruel  blow  at  individuals,  we  most  certainly,  from  our 
sense  of  duty — our  duty  toward  these  people — will  do  it; 
and  I  am  sure,  also,  that  the  Government,  on  its  side,  will 
recognize  the  justice  of  that  claim  and  will  do  everything 
it  can  to  purify  in  every  way  the  different  reservations  where 
the  government  work  is  going  on.  I  believe  that  will  go 
on  steadily  in  the  future,  and  we  shall  endeavor  to  bring 
into  the  lines  of  our  Association  a  larger  number  of  cul- 
tured, excellent,  responsible  people — thousands  and  thou- 
sands of  them  exist  all  over  this  country — who  might  be 
joined  with  us  in  this  effort.  We  will  endeavor  to  enlist 
their  sympathies  and  to  secure  their  aid,  and  I  have  no 
doubt  that  in  almost  every  instance  we  shall  try,  and  be 
able  to  bring  that  aroused  public  sentiment  to  support  the 
policies  which  have  been  outlined  here  to-night,  or  the 
general  principles  which  have  been  stated;  and  we  are 
perfectly  confident  that  not  only  the  soundness  of  these 
principles  will  be  demonstrated  by  the  gentleman  who 
represents  the  Government,  but  that  in  all  the  details  with 
which  they  are  worked  out  the  same  general  spirit  which 
has  been  manifested  will  be  carried  out. 

May  I  appeal  to  you,  in  closing,  to  help  us  in  this  task? 
In  any  association  where  there  are  comparatively  few 
people  who  really  have  their  hand  to  the  plow, — we  are 
trying  to  do  our  best,  with  whatever  mistakes  we  may 
make.  Will  you  help  us?  Will  you  come  into  closer  con- 
tact with  us  by  reading  our  reports,  by  judging  through  your 
own  intelligence  and  character  of  the  justness  of  the  posi- 
tion that  we  take,  and  then,  if  we  make  mistakes,  will 
you  help  us  to  get  back  into  the  right  path  ? 


40 

From  the  very  beginning  the  great  fundamental  idea 
of  our  work  was  this:  That  it  was  the  sentiment  of  the 
American  people  which  must  be  aroused;  that  with  our 
people  was  lodged  responsibility  for  the  outcome  of  this 
Indian  question,  and  that  the  people,  in  order  to  act  upon 
that  responsibility,  must  have  a  sense  of  their  responsibility 
to  a  power — a  divine  power — above  that.  That  has  been 
our  appeal  from  the  beginning,  and  the  moment  you  lose 
this  great  fundamental  idea  of  popular  responsibility,  and 
then  the  responsibility  of  the  people  to  God  Himself,  you 
lose  the  secret  of  power.  This  idea  must  exist  for  effective 
action  in  any  moral  work.  My  own  belief  is  that  the  solu- 
tion of  this  question  is  in  the  gradual  merging  of  these 
people  with  ourselves.  Finely  was  that  thought  brought 
out  to-night  by  the  Commissioner's  address,  that  anything 
like  separation  was  an  impossibility.  The  land  must  be 
well  cultivated,  and  in  order  to  do  that  you  must  have  the 
population  living  upon  that  land  elevated  up  to  a  high 
state  of  moral  and  spiritual  life.  These  forces  that  are 
working  upon  the  Indian  are  working  in  that  direction. 
There  is  another  great  force,  and  that  is  the  gradual  inter- 
marriage that  will  take  place.  I  love  to  recur  to  the  simple 
illustration  which  you  can  gain  from  the  map  that  hangs 
before  you,  where  the  Indian  reservation  is  marked  in  a 
color  that  differentiates  it.  Instantly  it  appears  to  you  as 
an  island  in  the  sea,  and  that  is  what  it  is.  Barbarism  the 
island  and  civilization  the  sea  around  about  it.  Steadily  that 
sea  is  fretting  away  the  shore  of  the  island.  The  island 
recedes  and  becomes  less  and  less,  until,  within  a  short 
time,  it  will  cease  to  exist.  The  sea  will  be  universal,  and 
in  order  that  it  shall  not  mean  the  destruction  of  the  Indian, 
the  Indian  must  be  made  a  part  of  the  sea  which  is  to  en- 
gulf him;  and  to  accomplish  that  it  means  the  fire  of  love 
must  burn  in  our  heart  for  the  weaker  brother,  and  a  de- 
termination that  every  force  that  can  work  toward  his 
civilization  shall  be  used  to  re-create  him.  Having  done 
that,  we  have  acquitted  ourselves  of  the  task  which  has 
been  laid  upon  our  shoulders. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

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*# 


JOSEPH  ELKINTON, 
REV.  CAM.  E.  GRAMMER 
FRANCIS  FISHER  KANE, 
MRS.  JOHN  MARKOE 
Miss  MARY  T.  MASON, 


MATTHEW  K.  SNIFFEN, 
HERBERT  WELSH, 
MRS.  TALCOTT  WILLIAMS, 
EDWARD  M.  WISTAR, 
HERBERT  S.  WELSH. 


3  1158  01237  4939 


